Richmond man gets jail time, probation for arranging sex with teen

A 41-year-old Richmond man was sentenced last week in Mendocino County Superior Court to spend less than a year in jail and five years on probation for arranging to have sex with a local teenaged boy in October and November of 2012.

Over the objection of prosecutor Heidi Larson, Judge John Behnke sentenced Michael Sparks to 270 days in jail and five years of formal probation, including a term that he sign up for sex offender education, according to the Mendocino County District Attorney's Office. In addition, Sparks will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Sparks was found at trial to have struck up a conversation with a 14-year-old Fort Bragg boy who cut off the conversation, then later placed an ad on Craigslist.com looking for the teen. Word got around and the boy's parents involved the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.

Posing as the child, a sergeant made contact with Sparks online and exchanged e-mails with him that became increasingly lewd and sexually explicit over the course of about a month, and culminated in an arrangement to meet and have sex. Sparks was arrested Nov. 10, 2012 after driving from Richmond to Fort Bragg for the meeting.

Larson had argued at a May 2 hearing for the four-year prison sentence the county probation department recommended, saying Sparks showed only delayed remorse and that his actions hadn't stemmed from mental illness.

The defense claimed an evaluation found that Sparks has "cyclical mood disorders similar to bipolar" and that he "can't put the brakes on" when he's in a "hypomanic state."

Behnke said it was Sparks' lack of any criminal record, his "very low likelihood of reoffending" and the fact that a medical expert had evaluated him and found him not to be a pedophile that influenced his decision.

He said spending several years in prison would be hard on someone who has never been behind bars and who "has a view on reality that is not the same as everyone else's." Behnke that Sparks didn't show any remorse when probation interviewed him for its report.

Behnke continued the sentencing hearing to last week, at which time Sparks was remanded to the custody of the Mendocino County Jail in Ukiah.

Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@ukiahdj.com, on Twitter @TiffanyRevelle or at 468-3523.